It will never forget the
great heart this woman has given to her "people" from the days of
girlhood; it will not forget the thousand perils she faced to seek out
the sick, the plague-stricken and the starving; in old age there will
still be those who will remember the first prayers to the real God that
she taught them in childhood; and children still to come, in cabin, tepee
and hut, will live to bless the memory of L'ange Meleese, who made
possible for them a new birthright and who in the wild places lived to
the full measure and glory of the Golden Rule.
To find Meleese Cummins and her home in the wilderness, one must start at
Le Pas as the last outpost of civilization and strike northward through
the long Pelican Lake waterways to Reindeer Lake. Nearly forty miles up
the east shore of the lake, the adventurer will come to the mouth of the
Gray Loon--narrow and silent stream that winds under overhanging
forests--and after that a two-hours' journey in a canoe will bring one to
the Cummins' cabin.
It is set in a clearing, with the thick spruce and balsam and cedar
hemming it in, and a tall ridge capped with golden birch rising behind
it. In that clearing John Cummins raises a little fruit and a few
vegetables during the summer months; but it is chiefly given up to three
or four huge plots of scarlet moose-flowers, a garden of Labrador tea,
and wild flowering plants and vines of half a dozen varieties.
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